Mats Larsson

For 18 years I have explored the amount of resources that will be needed in order for countries to change to electric vehicles. Now air regulators of California have decided to ban the sales of new gasoline cars from 2035 and the EU and the UK government have made the same decision.
The problem with these decisions is that much more electricity than decision makers realise will be needed to change transport systems to electric cars. In an interview at the CodeCon 2021 conference Elon Musk says that power generation in the US needs to double to facilitate a complete change to electromobility for cars, trucks, and buses. A doubling of US power generation means building generation capacity of 4,000 TWh per year, the equivalent of the generation of 350 nuclear reactors or 1.2 million wind turbines!
For Europe an entire change to electric cars will require 25% of the power generated.
In addition to power needs, all electricity grids will need to be reinforced, because a lot of power will be needed where little electricity is used today, for example in car parks, along highways and motorways etc. Huge investments will be needed in charging infrastructure as well. It is likely that electric roads with tracks in the road surface will be needed, technologies that are tested in several installations in Europe.
I have explored the resource needs for a large-scale change to electric vehicles for 18 years and recently published my 6th internationally published book on the topics of building the technologies and systems of the future: "How Building the Future Really Works."
In order to develop the technologies and build the systems of the future, present generations need to learn from past successes, like the Apollo program, development of computers and the Internet, development of mobile teleophony, nuclear power, and aviation technologies. These are all technology development examples where the US has played a key role.
In my book I draw conclusions about the development of the technologies and systems of the future based on these experiences from the past.
I hope you will be interested in inviting me as a guest on your podcast!
With kind regards
Mats Larrsson